Chapter 57

fifty-seven

ALEX

I walked into my home in the forest and closed the front door. I could hear voices coming from my office and the sound of someone loading the dishwasher in the kitchen. It felt surreal to be standing there, in the place that was supposed to be my sanctuary, after being interrogated for seven hours. When I left the police station with Ryan and my lawyer, I was exhausted.

We’d gone back to a hotel to regroup and make sense of everything that had happened. Standing under a scalding hot shower, I’d washed the worry and stress from my body. By the time I returned to the main living area, Ryan had ordered room service and I was feeling less like a criminal.

I could see why Dylan enjoyed working at Bryant Security. Ryan knew next to nothing about me, but he’d dropped everything to sit with me while the FBI did what they were paid to do.

A noise made me jump, yanking me back to the here and now.

Dylan was standing in the middle of the hallway. His eyes widened and his expression became guarded. “Welcome back. I didn’t think you’d be home tonight.”

“Ryan wanted me to stay in Boulder, but I wouldn’t have slept. He dropped me off.” I hung my jacket over the coat stand, not knowing how to fill the awkward silence stretching between us.

Dylan looked through the glass panel beside the front door. “Is Ryan still with you?”

“No. He went back to Boulder.”

“Jeremy and Connor are here,” Dylan told me. “Two FBI special agents left about five minutes ago.”

There could have been a party in my living room for all I cared. I was tired and needed to sleep. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Dylan’s arms dropped to his sides. “Wait. What about your friend? How is he?”

“Anthony has a fractured cheekbone and lots of cuts and bruises, but he’ll be okay. The doctors want him to stay in the hospital for a few nights.”

“Is someone looking after him?”

“The FBI’s guarding him. His wife will be there first thing in the morning.”

“That’s good. How are you?”

“Tired. I’m going to bed.” I turned and lifted my foot onto the staircase.

“You can’t. We haven’t talked about what happened.”

I could barely string two words together. “I was interrogated for nearly seven hours. I’m happy to talk about what happened tomorrow, but not now.”

“Why did you give the terrorists the program?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Not now, Dylan. I’m too tired.”

He took a step forward. “I need to tell you what I did. ”

“You activated the tracking software.”

“I did more than that.”

I had no idea what was coming next, but it must be serious for Dylan to look so worried.

“While we were working together, I created a gateway into your program. All copies of the program have been destroyed, except for the ones in Washington, D.C.”

My mouth dropped open. “What?”

“After we found the Haqani Army’s headquarters, I activated a virus. The terrorists’ copies of the EMP program won’t work.”

I took a deep breath, fighting to keep my pounding heart under control. “You were supposed to help me, not sabotage my work. You had no right to release a virus into the program.”

Dylan lifted his chin. “I was helping you.”

“You destroyed the program!”

“The only copies that are destroyed are the ones that shouldn’t have been shared in the first place.”

Something inside of me snapped. I trusted him. Letting him work on the program was a mistake. Falling in love with him was an even bigger one. How could I have been so stupid?

“Did you ever consider that I might have safeguards in place to protect the program? And just maybe, if I knew half as much about programming as you think I do, that I’d have a double-safeguard ready to use?”

“You were being interrogated. The FBI wouldn’t have let you release a virus when they didn’t know if they could trust you.”

My heart pounded. “And you’d know all about trust,” I ground out. “First thing in the morning, I want you, Connor, and Jeremy to leave.” I gripped the bannister, holding onto it like a lifeline. “I’m going to bed.”

Dylan’s white face stared back at me. “It’s not what you think.”

He was wrong. I knew exactly what he’d done, and I wouldn’t let him get close enough to hurt me again.